The game, "The Lighthouse" takes place February 19, 1964. You play as Irvine, a former detective turned private investigator in the state of Maine. Irvine's life is typical for someone who solves problems that the city doesn't have the inclination to follow up on or solve. In doing so, many lucrative cases that would come to his office are from locals, usually fulfilling requests to shadow couples looking to expose infidelity or business owners asking Irvine to gather enough evidence to incriminate a business partner.

February 19th is an important anniversary for Irvine, as it was the day he lost his first born, Lily, to cancer 7 years before. Every year, he would visit her, place a pink lily and lit candle on her gravestone and watch it burn until it was extinguished. This tradition had never been broken, until today. As Irvine began to pack and leave his office, candle in hand, he noticed a letter slide underneath his door.

The letter was marked "Irvine" and inside it read:

"Mr. Irvine,

My daughter hasn't come home for 2 years, 4 months and 9 days. You see, she's missing. She was involved in the old lighthouse incident, you may remember her name- Lily. I've asked the local authorities to look for her, but they haven't got a clue. They tell me horrible things that no parent should hear. They tell me to accept that she may have died. Worst, they tell me they can't help. I can't sleep until I know where she is, if she's safe, if she's scared, if she's trying to come home but can't find home. Help me find her. Look for her at the Lighthouse, as that was her last known location.

-L.B."

Inside the envelope was an address and a pink lily.

If you haven't played the original already, The Lighthouse takes place in Maine in the 1960's. You play as a P.I., investigating a disappearance in a cabin perched along the shore. While playing, you will encounter environmental obstacles and challenges that, once overcome, will reveal truths about the mystery. Not everything is how it seems as you'll soon discover the presence of something else coming for you.

We first created The Lighthouse almost 3 years ago in January of 2014 as a simple 2d point-and-click thriller game. Because we designed and built it in under 48hrs, we had to keep our vision and scope "limited."

Like most developers, we figured we would remake it one day and give it the love, energy, and expanded features it deserved to turn it into a proper video game. We are proud to say that The Lighthouse is being re-imagined and fully rebuilt using Unreal Engine 4 as a fully featured video game.

Take a look at some of the before and after photos right here:

As you can see, we applied the same features, environments, and perspectives from the 2014 version of the game into this newer version. The differences are pretty clear, but it's also quite familiar.

We're a small team so we use a lot of contract work to get models and art into the game. Recognizable assets are bought on digital marketplaces as placeholders and will eventually be replaced with custom models. The final game will feature many different environments and objects from the original game and new ones that players haven't seen before. To achieve this, we naturally switched from a 2D point-and-click perspective to a fully immersed First Person 3D perspective. This is all in an effort to tell a unique short story and engage the player in interesting puzzles.

There are additional locations that you will play through, that are not shown. Everything you see is still a work in progress and not in its final stage.

We understand that sounds are so important when it comes to thrillers. We spend a lot of time researching and applying the best sounds, music, and effects. Our goal is to create a game where even after you're done playing, you still remember the music and sounds.

Here are a few clips of sounds that are currently in our Alpha Demo:

Laylee is one of the original creators of The Lighthouse, when it was first crafted at the 2014 GGJ. She is also a founding member of Shadow Knights Studio with her Bachelor of Science in Web Design and Development. With over 8 years professional experience in Operations Management, Laylee has the foundation to motivate and run a team, small or large. In addition, Laylee loves to program and is an engineer and designer for Shadow Knights Studio for over 3 years.

I’ve been a fan of video games since I was a little girl. My grandmother was actually the first person to introduce me to video games with the Atari and Sega systems. We always had video games in our house, whether it was PC games like Doom & Myst or console games like Mario & Final Fantasy. I love to play games of all kinds. Some of my favorite games are Final Fantasy IX, Ni No Kuni, Fable, Paper Mario, Kingdom Hearts and the Gears of War series.
I’ve always had a passion to create things, and it all started when I taught myself HTML and how to create websites when I was 13. From there I continued to teach myself other languages from C# to C++. I have worked on games on many different platforms from iOS, Xbox Kinect, Web, and PC/Mac. It’s an amazing feeling to be apart of a team that gets to create games. I feel especially passionate about this title because it reminds me so much of the thriller point-and-click games I used to play when I was younger but with our added twists and turns!

I can’t wait for you all to play The Lighthouse!

Ari is one of the original creators of The Lighthouse, when it was first crafted in 2014 at GGJ. He is also a founding member of Shadow Knights Studio. Ari has his Bachelor of Science in Game Development. For nearly 5 years, he has worked professionally on video games and simulations for many different companies. Ari has experience in many different aspects of development and works as a Game Developer.

My true life's calling is building video games. When I was a child, I would skip hanging out with my friends during summer break and play Final Fantasy, ActRaiser, Mario, Street Fighter II, etc. My old man had the only computer in the house, and it was off limits! All my friends were playing DOOM and I was stuck using Microsoft Publisher for school assignments only, though, I got to sneak around and play Oregon Trail at school- “You died of dysentery, but at least you got 500 pounds of meat!” Console gaming became a part of my childhood. After all, playing kick-the-can or dragging a stick up and down the neighborhood wasn’t my idea of fun when I could be on an adventure with Cecil and Kain saving the planet. Old-school games really are the best. Their simplicity and high skill level will always transcend their graphics, even today. When starting Shadow Knights Studio, I truly believe this philosophy would be the cornerstone to our craft. “Simple games that are high quality.” I think you can see that when we released our first title, “Love Monsters!” on the iOS store, and we will continue that with The Lighthouse.
When I’m not programming, I like to spend time with my family and friends, make electronic music, read "Ready Player One," and watch Movies and Television shows. Speaking of which, you ever watch Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones? Those shows are awesome!

Being that I love video games and all other forms of entertainment, and I know you do too, which is why you’re here, I can honestly say that I will do whatever it takes to make sure The Lighthouse is special.

Daniah joined Shadow Knights Studio in 2015 as an Artist for the adorable Love Monsters! iOS game. She is a talented traditional artist and designer who has worked on video games children’s books, portraits, murals, and much more.

It all started with my IBM PS/1 with its mouse driven graphical interface courtesy of ROM. I was partial to the Microsoft Works “window” which opened to reveal a glaring royal blue word processing screen and blinking white cursor. I would type up short stories to my hearts content, which were ALWAYS scary, and print them on my high tech deafening dot matrix printer. It was the beginning of a fascination for me really, my love for all things computer.

Then it happened, from floppy to CD, my Sony VAIO PC with its impressive 166MHz processor with 16MB of RAM, and a 28.8-kbps modem. It shipped with a 3D graphical interface on top of Windows 95. I got my first graphics tablet, corded pen and all. I could sit in Microsoft Paint all day and night. I was an artist from the get go, but art on the computer was combining my two loves and sent my imagination into a frenzy as pixelated as it was. This is what I wanted to do and I knew it with every teenage fiber of my being.

I painted, and painted. For more than 20 years I’ve been painting. From murals for schools to illustrations for books, and at Shadow Knights Studio, this traditional brush to canvas gal is painting on a computer. I am living my childhood dream and I feel so grateful to call myself a Knight.

Fun Fact for all you Sony VAIO enthusiasts; there is a hidden meaning in Sony's VAIO logo. The first two letters represent an analog signal and the last two are the 1 and 0 of the digital world.

Most of our budget will be spent creating and incorporationg assets. Every dollar from this Kickstarter will be used exclusively to enhance the project. {i.e. Textures, Models, Animations, Sounds, Environments}

25% - Modeling realistic environments

20% - Modeling and texturing game objects

12.5%- Additional programming

10% - Audio Effects

10%- Original Music and ambient tracks

5%- Voice acting

2.5% - Developer Fees

Help us reach our stretch goals so we can add some awesome features to The Lighthouse!

Risks and challenges

We have a passionate team that loves to create and we always try to mitigate risks by applying what we've learned over the years directly onto our next project.

Our process is to speak openly to our fanbase, because we know communication is key. With that said, our biggest hurdle has always been 3D modeling and animations. We're mostly programmers and our biggest obstacle is getting assets we can use to build our worlds. We've contracted out work and so far it has been pretty successful but the problem is environmental cohesion can be lost. [i.e. making sure a cup looks like it is set in the same decade as a chair or table]

We believe we have done a great job so far in bringing all the art pieces we have together and we will continue to build our worlds to the highest quality without compromise. We will continue to vocalize our progress on a consistent basis so fans can follow our progress and even learn how we solve problems in real time to develop games. We can't wait to bring you The Lighthouse.